When new F1 owners Liberty Media took over the sport recently, they put forward the idea of allowing teams the option of purchasing a stake in the company. It currently has shares set aside for sale to the F1 teams should they wish to purchase them, which it will hold for six months.
Mercedes motorsport head Toto Wolff said on Friday, Formula One teams should consider Liberty Media’s invitation to take a stake in the sport and should not reject it out of hand. Wolff who is a shareholder and team boss of world champions Mercedes, told Austrian magazine Trend that “This is an idea which one shouldn’t dismiss easily,” “But in any case one must know more about the business case and our role in the whole (project). Talks about this have only just begun and will probably last over the coming months,” added the Austrian.
Liberty Media said last month it hoped the competing teams, reduced to 10 after Manor folded in January, would buy a stake in the sport following the U.S. based media company’s takeover and had reserved $400 million of shares for them.
The shares will be retired if not issued to teams within six months of the takeover, which completed on Jan. 23.
Some of the smaller privately-owned teams, such as Sauber and Force India, are unlikely to participate since they operate on very tight budgets and have had cash flow problems.
Wolff also said in the interview that Liberty, which has ambitious plans to grow the sport in the Americas while also safeguarding the traditional European grand prix, should think about making races more affordable for fans. He further added, “Liberty Media will certainly have to tackle the topic of ticket prices.”
There was not much interest forthcoming from teams to start with, as they were keen to know more about what they were actually getting themselves into, before making the substantial investment required to take up the deal. The teams asked Liberty for more time and information to allow them to mull the deal over, to which they duly obliged by extending their original deadline.
